SEEK Web tutor: fostering a critical stance while exploring the causes of volcanic eruption

We investigated the impact of a Web tutor on college students’ critical stance and learning while exploring Web pages on science. Critical stance is an aspect of self-regulated learning that emphasizes the need to evaluate the truth and relevance of information as the learner engages in systematic inquiry to answer challenging questions. The Web tutor is called SEEK, an acronym for Source, Evidence, Explanation, and Knowledge. The SEEK Tutor was designed to promote a critical stance through several facilities in a computer environment: spoken hints on a mock Google™ search page, on-line ratings on the reliability of particular Web sites, and a structured note-taking facility that prompted them to reflect on the quality of particular Web sites. We conducted two experiments that trained students how to take a critical stance and that tracked their behavior while exploring Web pages on plate tectonics to research the causes of the volcanic eruption of Mt. St. Helens. The SEEK Tutor did improve critical stance, as manifested in essays on the causes of the volcanic eruption, and did yield learning gains for some categories of information (compared with comparison conditions). However, many measures were unaffected by either the presence of the SEEK Tutor or by prior training on critical stance. We anticipate that robust improvements on critical stance and learning will require more training and/or some expert feedback and interactive scaffolding of critical stance in the context of specific examples. This work was conducted while Tenaha O’Reilly was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Memphis.     

Early Responsiveness to Intensive Behavioural Intervention Predicts Outcomes Among Preschool Children with Autism

Archival data from a private day‐school offering early intensive behavioural intervention based on the principles of applied behaviour analysis to preschoolers with autism (N = 29) were analysed longitudinally. Teacher reports on the Assessment of Basic Language and Learning Skills (ABLLS) were available up to 4 times and on the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales—Classroom Edition (VABS‐CE), at 2 time points. Parent reports on the Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist (ATEC) were available at 2 time points. All assessments occurred approximately at 6‐month intervals. Children showed statistically significant progress across all skill domains on the ABLLS and on selected subscales and the composite scales of the VABS‐CE and ATEC. Gains were substantial for some children and minor for others. When divided into performance‐based groups, both higher‐performing and lower‐performing groups showed improvement over time, with greater improvement for the higher‐performing group. Nine of 16 children who had been discharged from the programme entered inclusive kindergarten or first‐grade classrooms with an aide. Seven discharged children entered special education classrooms. No child progressed to the point that special education services were not needed. Findings are discussed relevant to the extant literature on early intensive behavioural intervention outcomes among young children with autism.     

Gender differences in jurors' perceptions of infanticide involving disabled and non-disabled infant victims

Objectives

The present study investigated the influence of juror gender and infant victim disability on jurors’ reactions to infanticide cases.

Methods

Participants (men and women undergraduates) read a summary of a mock trial involving alleged father-perpetrated infanticide. The infant was described as severely mentally disabled or as not disabled. Participants completed a series of case-related judgments (e.g., guilt; sentence; and empathy, sympathy, and similarity toward the defendant and victim).

Results

There were pervasive gender differences such that compared to men, women mock jurors rendered more guilty verdicts, perceived the father/defendant as having greater intent to kill his infant, and felt less similar to the defendant. Compared to men, women also believed the father was more responsible and the pneumonia was less responsible for the infant's death, had less sympathy and empathy for the defendant, endorsed more negative beliefs about the father, and were more likely to believe the infant was a unique person. Mediational analyses revealed that these statistically significant effects were explained, in part, by gender differences in attitudes toward the defendant. Further, whether the infant victim was portrayed as severely disabled (versus developmentally normal) had little effect on central case judgments such as verdict, but jurors who believed the infant was severely disabled gave significantly shorter sentences to the defendant, were less likely to perceive the defendant as mentally ill, and felt significantly less empathy for and similarity to the infant victim.

Conclusions

Although juror gender consistently predicted juror's judgments, there were fewer effects of disability status. Even so, bias against disabled infants manifested for several dependant variables.

Practical implications

This research can inform legal professionals about the potential for bias in juror decision-making, and in turn, help facilitate fairness and justice for the youngest and most vulnerable victims of child abuse.     

Major survey design issues for the IEA Third International Mathematics and Science Study

He has been involved in international comparative studies of education since 1971. His current research is focused on integrating frameworks for the assessment of learning, ability and performance. He recently completed (with T. N. Postlethwaite) a volume reporting findings of the second science study of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA).     

Contextual Effects on Student Achievement: School Leadership and Professional Community

This paper contains empirical evidence of a positiverelationship between faculty relations and studentachievement in mathematics in U.S. high schools. Thefindings are based on composite measures ofprofessional community and transformational leadershipwhich were defined and constructed through comparisonsof theoretical models from studies of the socialorganization of schools. I find that the effects oftransformational leadership and professional communityare interdependent. However, these two processes arenot equally dependent on each other. Professionalcommunity only has a positive effect on studentachievement in mathematics in schools whose teachersexperience above average transformational leadership. I also find that these effects are strongest in lowersocioeconomic status (SES) schools. Thus, I confirmfindings from in-depth studies and studies ofpurposeful samples that the social organization ofteachers and administrators within schools can affectstudent achievement.